UNDERSTANDING
a language
stashed by vipers
ripped through
needle’s length
moon slammed
under skin
planted on bricks
loosed
by little blue boy
gripping the horn
before midnight
can be blown
THE MUSICIAN
guitar strings pluck
street-side
hat laid flat
for coin chink
bread for the dark
food for the day
castanets click
above tossed change
hanging to
his Peruvian lilt
Wheelchair with a View
When you sit in this chair all day
and look out the window for years,
the garden is calendar and clock
declaring the coming of seasons.
You know when to expect them
but spring is always a surprise.
After surviving long winters
you forget after so many years
the daffodils will shout again
and blooms on the redbud cover
leaves that will hide young robins,
their beaks open for more.
Winter is all you remember until,
for reasons only God knows,
spring smiles again.
Makes Forever Shorter
When a bullet goes in
and doesn’t come out
you read about it
in the paper, hear
about it on TV.
A person takes a bullet
near the heart and learns
a surgeon can't remove it.
It's part of him forever.
Happens like a drive-by
shooting when a loved one
makes a comment no
apology can remove.
The loved one doesn't
know there’s a problem,
doesn’t realize lightning
through the cerebellum
is by far a better option.
Doesn't let the victim linger.
Makes forever shorter.
we do
"I want to", I tell her
and she knows enough to ask
how I feel late at night
under sheets seldom warmed by another
her curiosity layered with tones of tears
and understanding of the banished ones
the forgiving ones
the tolerant ones so often driven beyond
tolerance
"I need to", so I do
and she responds in kind
gestures of anointment, like
pointing to the moon for no reason
or stopping me in mid-sentence to assure me
that silence is not exclusive to the lonely
but a realm where mystery begs for pause
to reveal the magician's secrets
"I have to", and I will
and she caresses my bleeding palms
with a voice blessed with salve
with concern
with a Shaman's gliding touch
that heals from within our cynical walls
and I realize just enough to know, I am
--
strangers
those wax images of philanthropy
melting against the flames of the gutter
against the pains of another
Life
exposed in Kodachrome light
where a shadow is a threat
a murderer,
a cop waiting to increase your status
to page 2 of the Metro section
infamy
your nemesis, as anonymity comes in twenties
burnt to disguise
in forties, drank 'til Sunrise
in the rusted palms of six men bearing your weight
as if osmosis will forgive them for another day
he gave what he had...a premature epitaph
not recorded in granite, or soil
but in the hands of a stranger
that needed a hug
aren't we all strangers
-- Rob Dyer
make it work
wherever - whenever - whatever...
a whore's mantra
and they screw me every time
leaving me in pieces
my shell intact for future options
a torn wad of gratitude
left on the table
just the way I like it
-- Rob Dyer
Dementia
How does the breath know it
is not water, or some other
element to rename the senses?
How do you plant and minister
the love of dawn into the ground?
How do you carve a coin from wood
or turn your tea into coffee, make
a fossil from a flesh-covered bone?
In the days of the dead mare the river
was darned with weeds. From the eyes
of an old woman, I saw the milkyway in a stone
and grew to love the quietude of the woods.
Born and then lost to all vows. Eighty-five years
of seeking salvation in clay and from
all the little stories told by like-minded friends.
Then it is an impersonal room, poetry laced with paranoia,
and your limb hacked off at the thigh.
Then it is those who love you praying
for a quick delivery onto death, and those who
know you, holding your hand and telling you
thank-you for our time, for those Sunday phone calls,
telling you how deeply it hurts
to say this last goodbye.
Resignation
They came with a cry of judgment,
drugged by detachment and the effervescent
'now'. They came to rule my dry heart
and seize my voice from its socket.
They told me the chapel
was corrupted with false desires.
I thought this to be reality, a statement
that touched the jugular. But when I touched them
it was as if all colours grew dull
and my pulse drummed slow
and amplified. As if the trinity of love, hope and faith
petrified into a powerless slumber, and the food
that was mine had lost its substance.
They came, carried by a yellow sea,
reptile-like and ravenous.
They promised me an anchor but offered only a
shell. And like the death of miracles,
they clung to me like a metal mesh shawl,
blinding my hope with their diction.
How does a seed know the sun from beneath the earth, but by the warmth?
In the waters, there is a gift of coal and ice
merged like a soul awakened to its chi -
bursting out from the stomach lining, curator
of gravity. Balance and propriety, bulging forward, a visible
mystical entity in need of surgery and of wonder.
In the waters where hair follicles rest on a sandy wet floor,
where there are things that have never known the sun,
fear is eased by compassion and there is no downfall
that cannot also be a redemption. There is the water
and a swelling fluid force that is ever-so-fragile,
but committed to emerge, no more a tide against itself
or a happiness that cannot be embraced.
In the waters, a water-flower has risen, a bit of weed
with glow-in-the-dark leaves, a colour the fishes know.
That flower will find the air, find a way to express its birth,
sowing forward.
Living with the Moon
If people live with me
they might fly from three to five feet,
see more of the earth,
and not live in a world comprised of flames.
They can view the night with the stars
without a light shining through their eyes.
They’ll never come down,
just float in an airless space,
the light leaving their bodies.
A Critic Comes to Dinner
I told my guest
it’s just a poem
doesn't mean a thing
a salad tossed
with colors bright
while listening to
piccolos of
wrens and robins
overcome by spring
Seasons of the Year
Let’s not worry about it, Dearie,
life gets better, life gets worse.
We’re no different than
the seasons of the year except
we’re luckier than most having
lived our lives in summer.
We're falling now among
the leaves of autumn
and we have winter yet
to face with ice and snow.
Let’s put the kettle on for tea,
grab a blanket and stay warm.
We'll light a fire and discover
if we’re evergreen or tropical
when spring arrives next year.
Small Shoulders
She speaks the truth
as she always has
in 40 years of marriage
especially when she’s
lost in making dinner
this time though
she has to wash
blood from the paring knife
before she peels
the last of the potatoes.
Until the knife went in
he didn’t think in 40 years
she had noticed that
for a man his size he
has small shoulders.
Unplanned Parenthood
There’s nothing else to say.
The problem won’t go away.
It will palpitate until
the death of one of them
as with a fetus
taken from a woman
who needs a little rest
before she puts her makeup on
and takes the bus back to work.
The woman needs the money.
Discussing why this happened
won’t pay her rent.
Memorabilia
I read a poem to my Mother
in the living room,
and she laughed,
thinking it was good;
and it made me
feel good,
even though I was
34 years old, and was
sitting in a chair
that once belonged
to my Grandfather
back before he died,
in a house that belonged
to my Father
back before he died.
But they both did die.
And so the blood
and the name
are both left with me.
And so I guess it’s ok
that my energy
is used
making my Mom laugh
at poems
that are
inspired by Bukowski
while we sit here
together on Thanksgiving.
Adrenaline
Adrenaline can save your soul
or your skin.
Adrenaline can cause a fight
or a flight, depending
on the nature of the Beast –
whether it is sweet
or filled with cancerous bile.
Adrenaline can spike your wine
with hormones from
the underworld,
ripping up through the soil,
snatching away all remnants of life.
Adrenaline can create new life,
putting courage into the vein,
pumping up the blood,
chasing away the fear –
driving it into the swine, then
into the sea,
down to the depths, drowning,
smothering, suffocating.
What I Want for Christmas
Can you give me
more neuron synapses
flashes
that create passion?
Can you give me
more fire, more suffering,
more love, more art?
Can you give me more truth?
Can you give me more poetry?
Can you give me more wine?
Can you give me success?
Can you give me less
of all the things
I do not need?
Can you give me more space,
more time, more awareness?
Can you give me more health,
more alertness, more mental acuity?
Can you give me my future,
up front, on loan, in the present?
Three Poems
when sight embraces
what a page can give
black within white
white within black
ardor of the embrace
within poetic electric
******
summer mugginess
dragging my shadow
behind me
******
above the marsh
something birdish in the reeds
unseen wholesomeness
Verse in Four Senses
Pitch, tone
Brightness, contrast, hue
Fragrance
Throw and catch
Whistle
Of passage through air
Slap of the baseball glove
Snowfields under a gray sky
Still water reflecting autumn leaves
Speeding red convertible
A family of geese on the grass
Wet leaves on the forest floor
Clean breath of wind before the rain
Wood smoke
Roses
Her pheromone sweat
“We’ll still be friends?”
Wild blonde backlit halo
Back and forth, once
Low and soft
“No, I don’t think so.”
-- Tom Rubenoff